The benefits of an RSS feeder

Recently I've fallen into the habit of repeatedly visiting the same websites. That's OK because they're interesting and they change often enough to be 'sticky'.

I've started to keep track of them through an RSS aggregator called Bottom Feeder, so that I'm notified of new postings without having to visit them. The ability to view content outside the pages it was originally written for has implications for the aesthetics and navigation of websites. However, it also means that the time I previously spent in visiting sites that haven't been updated can now be used to explore new areas.

For example, there's a simple but hypnotic animation of Heath Robinson-like machinery processing enigmatic blue balls.

There's also the Camera Toss blog, which has some beautiful abstract photographs, created by people throwing their cameras into the air. A group on Flickr is dedicated to this unlikely pursuit. Although I like this idea a lot, I value my camera too much to join in.

I've also found a number of sites devoted to puppets and stop-motion animation while researching for a forthcoming college assignment (more on this over the next few weeks, I'm sure). Perhaps the oddest is the Insanely Twisted Shadow Puppets site, with animation created for Halloween on Nickolodeon TV.